So what's the real cost?

[TRainH2o]

Lot's of good advice in this thread. For me, going AG saved me about 40%, right of the bat. Now that I am washing and reusing my yeast and buying hops in bulk, I'm saving more than that.

DME and LME are quite expensive compared to the same amount of gravity points from an AG mash.

Now if only I could find a group grain buy in the Atlanta area, I'd be set.

 

[camus]

+1 On hopsdirect, as mentioned before if you are buying more than an ounce or two of hops that you use regularly buy bulk. For my last two brews, rather than buy the quantities needed, I got two lbs for less.

My MLT cost me under $35 dollars to build, using that and bulk grain, it paid for itself over buying LME in three batches. I already had a kettle and a bottling bucket, that is all you need.

Plus I enjoy it and I enjoy fresh brew.

 

[cms]

haha yeah...

You get a recipe with 9lbs of LME, and you're already looking at $50 out the door, forget about hops or steeping grains.

11.50 for a 3# bag at northern brewer or 11.95 at Midwest.

Extract is going to be your most expensive ingredient, but 50 bucks for 9# is too much! 9# of DME for a 5 gal batch is an awful lot, too. Those must be some pretty serious beers you're making.

 

[Golddiggie]

rexbanner, doing the numbers comparing what I've brewed with what I would have paid to drink what I used to, I've easily saved almost $500 over my first 10 batches compared with buying an equal amount of brew. Only my first three were extract batches, #4 was a mostly mash, and then it's been all grain since then. So, that's more than I spent on the hardware to change over to all grain, saved... :rockin: moving forward, I'm going to be in the black compared with buying beer. Recovering cost of buying ingredients will happen fast too, especially buying in bulk/smart... Even if I spend $400-$500 a year in ingredients (grain, hops, yeast, etc.) I'll still be ahead of the game pretty fast (my batch average is under $20)...

Nice when you can put it into context like that... :rockin: I do see that as a side benefit though... Main reason to home brew is for what you're getting for brew.

 

[FifteenTen]

I think you guys and gals are failing to acknowledge a key element. You brew because you love it or at least gravitate toward it. It’s a hobby (that results in beer, which we shall return to later). Imagine if you will that you are a golfer (no offence intended to golfing brewers). You buy cheap clubs at $300 or go top of the line for a gozillian dollars (as in any hobby). If you want beat a ball around the grass for several hours every few weeks you spend $35 to $85 in green fees. If you golf like me you will start with 20 balls and leave with none so we'll average $65 in green fees and $20 in balls gone every few weeks, no return. If you paintball [my last "hobby" which I have not done in 3 ½ years (daughter is 3 years old now)] you can get a "beginners" kit for about $80 (which you will hate after someone with a $1,000 paintball gun nails you 13 times before you can say "out"). By the way, it hurts. But before you can play you have to buy a $30 case of paint balls if you want cheap ones. Mind you, you can not buy cheap balls on the net, you must buy the field owner's paint balls. You leave the paintball field with less than you started with, no return, in fact, negative return, if you count the bruises you leave with. Lets not even get into flying hobby aircraft (gravity sucks) no return, hobby RC (did you see that crash?) no return, or racing actual cars, less than first place consecutively, no return, etc., etc, etc.

Now, back to home brewing. Same hobby investment levels $100 to a gozillian dollars. However, at the end of brewing, fermenting, bottling/kegging, which generated, for a dedicated brewer, as much fun/enjoyment as golfing, paint balling, RCing, racing etc. you get beer to drink for days or weeks. Very few other hobbies result in prolonged satisfaction.

If you value your FREE time at (lets go cheap here) $50 an hour, you must subtract $50 for every hour you spend brewing, botteling, (maybe even drinking) from your brewing costs, because you love it and you do it because you love it.

 

[ellicit]

^Damn...where you getting extract for so cheap? Extract brews generally put me at $85+ per brew, whereas AG brews put me at less than $45.

DAMN! Where are you buying your stuff from? I've got 4 LBHS in a somewhat close proximity and the pricing is all the same, I can do an extract run for 45-50 and all grain for 30-35.

 

[Hang Glider]

all in all, with the money I've spent on this hobby -




















It's cheaper than fishing!

 

[Yooper]

all in all, with the money I've spent on this hobby -




















It's cheaper than fishing!

Hmmmm. I bought an older cheap boat for fishing.

I bought an all-electric brew rig.

I'd say I'm about even in costs!

Sure, the ingredients are cheap but I've got at least $3000 in equipment. I'd have to drink a heck of a lot more to "break even!".

 

[TheMan]

know all grain is a much longer process - but what are you averaging per batch on cost? I need to make it work for me financially...because even though I am developing a deep sweet sweet love for homebrew; I am a cheap MoFo.

If you're looking at it financially, AG is a no brainer. It's easily cheaper. Equipment costs are NOT that pricey if you simply build some of it yourself. If the "immense" equipment costs are preventing you from going AG then think about it this way...you're spending $42 on an extract batch...you'll spend $25 on an AG batch. That's $15 per batch cheaper that pays for the equipment in itself. After 6 batches you've saved $100, that's a mash tun and a few other pieces.

Some of the prices people are giving you are bulk prices. This is the real way to save in the hobby. As others have mentioned, www.hopsdirect.com will save you tons if you just buy your hops in bulk.

I'm not in this hobby to brew cheap beer, but I do enjoy saving myself money on a hobby. I'm a cheap MoFo too

 

[Kieran]

Hmmmm. I bought an older cheap boat for fishing.

I bought an all-electric brew rig.

Do you ever BIAB....

Brew in a boat?


$85 for extract is insane. I finally took a trip to my LHBS in Chicago and found the prices for extract comparable to the best online prices, without the hassle and cost of shipping. Why not just buy online instead of paying absurd prices locally?

 

[matthewgardner]

@FifteenTen - I do love the art of homebrewing. It's a hobby that I am really enjoying, but what I am getting at is that I can't really afford to do this all the time (even though if I could I would brew every week) and I was wondering if the switch to all grain was really worth it financially.

 

[scottieo2]

haha yeah...

You get a recipe with 9lbs of LME, and you're already looking at $50 out the door, forget about hops or steeping grains.

Take a 30 min trip down to Foxboro....at Witches Brew you can get 7 lbs of LME for I believe $18-$19.

 

[Yooper]

Do you ever BIAB....

Brew in a boat?


$85 for extract is insane. I finally took a trip to my LHBS in Chicago and found the prices for extract comparable to the best online prices, without the hassle and cost of shipping. Why not just buy online instead of paying absurd prices locally?

No, but I DIAB. (drink in a boat).

I think the great thing about brewing is it can be as simple or as complex as you like. Great beers are made with the "bucket-in-a-bucket (zapap)" system, and great beers are made with a $2500 all-electric system (I hope!). I've had some wonderful beers made with extract and steeping grains, and some terrible AG beers. And vise-versa. As long as each person is happy with their beer, and their process, it's all good.

 

[RMitch]

Do you ever BIAB....

Brew in a boat?


$85 for extract is insane. I finally took a trip to my LHBS in Chicago and found the prices for extract comparable to the best online prices, without the hassle and cost of shipping. Why not just buy online instead of paying absurd prices locally?

No need. Simply made the switch to AG, and face much more reasonable prices.

 

[motobrewer]

I'm pretty much all set for 5 gallon batches (AG setup, nice thermometer, digitally-controlled ferm chamber, kegerator) and the equipment didn't cost close to the remainder, $1,350. All profit, baby.

really? my 3-tap keezer was over $550 itself to build. i'd like to know how you set yourself up that cheaply!

 

[Bernie Brewer]

Around $30 for .050 batch. That's ten gallons, BTW

 

[RMitch]

Are you guys including priming sugar, fining agents, other misc. things, etc. in your "costs"?

 

[Bernie Brewer]

Don't use priming sugar or finings. But I do need CO2. A five gallon tank lasts a long time, so the cost for that is minimal.

 

[Golddiggie]

Whirlfloc tablets, or Irish Moss is maybe $0.25 per batch... Priming sugar is someplace in the $0.25-$0.50 range, per batch (I don't use corn sugar)... Not enough to talk about... It also doesn't matter when you're comparing extract to all grain, since you'll use those in both types of brews. BTW, I do put a Whirlfloc tablet on each of my recipes, so it is factored into my costs...

When I do start kegging, I won't count the cost of CO2, or beer gas, into each batch cost. That's post brewing, so really shouldn't matter. You could spend a tiny amount to bottle/keg a brew, or you could spend a lot.

 

[Yooper]

Don't use priming sugar or finings. But I do need CO2. A five gallon tank lasts a long time, so the cost for that is minimal.

Me too. Well, I do use whirlfloc in almost every batch. That's about 25 cents for 10 gallons. Otherwise, no priming sugar, no finings.

I reuse yeast (check out Bernie Brewer's yeast washing sticky) and grow some of my own hops. I buy my grain in bulk. My cream ale recipe costs $11 (including yeast) for 5 gallons, but my house amber uses more hops and grains and costs $40 for 10 gallons. Even so, the cost is not all that much. It was buying all the gear that set me back a bit.

 

[beninan]

hmmm, I posted a reply here, but somehow it didn't show up... I'll try to recall what I typed originally....

I bought the ingredients for my partial mash (OG 1.073) and it came to $30.40 without yeast. There's 9.5 lb of grain, 3 lb of light DME, and 2 oz of Hallertau. The recipe calls for another pound of DME, but I already had some.

It's a mock-bock using some harvested Pacman.